


White Eyes, White Stars

by KnightPaladins



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Depression, M/M, Mental Illness, Other, kinda romance but mostly a self worth thing, they're really in love guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:55:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23784274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightPaladins/pseuds/KnightPaladins
Summary: Essek has been drawn and quartered for his crimes against the Dynasty - but thanks to the Mighty Nein, he's still alive. But how can you be alive, when everything you are has caved out from under you, when your entire self is a lie laid bare?Dusk is turning to night, and Caleb wants to help Essek answer these questions.
Relationships: Essek Thelyss & Caleb Widogast, Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 8
Kudos: 133





	White Eyes, White Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Just a quick note: nothing seriously bad happens, but in this particular fic, Essek is struggling a LOT. His dissociation and depression may hit too hard for some readers, so please be cautious.

“Essek.

Essek.

...Essek?”

“ESSEK!”

It is Jester’s shout that finally wakes Essek from his trance. Caleb sees him flinch, even under his oversized mantle; the one souvenir from a time now gone. As he looks to Jester and Caleb, sitting by the smoldering coals of a campfire, Caleb sees the look in his eyes… or rather, a lack of a look.

His eyes have always been pale, Caleb knows that. But he also knows from his spell components that, when adders shed their skin, their eyes go milk white, dead, as their body sloughs off and forms anew. And Essek is an adder, tonight.

Caleb waves his hand at the flames, at the spit settled over it, and at the dented plates piled high with Caduceus’s cooking. “You haven’t touched dinner tonight, Thelyss. Do you want anything before we put out the flames and I set up the hut?”

Essek is still looking between him and Jester, as if he can’t comprehend them. But Caleb knows he can. Or he could. His ears did not perk at Caleb’s words; maybe he really did not hear him.

Just when Caleb is about to repeat himself, Essek says, his voice rougher than a cat’s tongue: “I am… fine. Thank you, both.”

Beside Caleb, Jester makes a face, twisted in theatrical shock and sincere concern. “Essek, hasn’t it been, like, two days since you’ve last eaten? I mean, if you really don’t like Caduceus’s cooking, well, you’re wrong, but, I have some cupcakes from that bakery in Zadash-”

“I’m… fine, Jester.” At first his voice is harsh, but he softens quickly, his moment of a Shadowhand’s sharp tone gone as quick as it came. “I’m... fine.”

“You know, people who say ‘I’m Fine’ a lot typically aren’t fine.” Caleb says. Essek’s head turns to him slowly, as if the action is agony.

“I…” Essek is trying to meet his gaze, but settles for looking at the sickly soil beneath him. “...Frankly, I do not think I deserve… hospitality.”

“What do you mean, of course you do!” Jester pipes up, voice rising. It merits a look from Caduceus, who is definitely listening in, but the rest of the Nein has gotten used to her inflection. Essek winces. “We love you very very much, Essek! Especially Caleb-”

“Thank you, Jester,” Caleb says, embarrassment rising in his throat. He can feel heat on his cheeks… but Essek hardly responds. He’s become distracted by the earth beneath him; a bloody, broken nail traces patterns in the dirt. Caleb leans forward. It’s the rune for Fortune’s Favor, but warped, loopy; not at all like the handwriting in the drow’s journals.

“...Essek?”

He looks up again, just as slowly, just as painfully as before. He meets Caleb’s gaze for just a moment, enough time for the human to study his comrade. His eyes do indeed look dead; his sunken cheeks and now-skeletal face do not help. One eye is partially closed from a beating, and a few nicks crisscross his face as if attempting to mold the clay of his ebony flesh into something new. His big and sharp nose is crooked. His white hair is grimy and growing shaggier, the constellations shaved into the sides of his head fading like the sun is from the sky.

He looks the worst he’s ever looked. And yet Caleb, with every fiber of his body… feels the need to hold him close.

He settles for reaching out his hand. It takes a few awkward seconds before Essek lays his fingers into Caleb’s palm, but when he does, they grip tight.

“Are you strong enough to take a walk, Essek?”

Essek looks down at his body, swaddled in his cloak. It takes a good five minutes (Caleb counts) before Essek is standing at his full height. Not even hovering, just… standing.

“Y… yes. Yes, Widogast. I am.”

As Caleb leads him away, Jester shouts: “I hope you two have a nice kiss!”

Caleb begins to move slightly quicker, but not without seeing the smallest smirk on Essek’s face, disappearing after a heartbeat.

There’s no haste or hurry as the two trudge along the barren wastes of northern Xhorhas. The hand that Essek uses to hold Caleb’s has slid up a bit, now grasping his forearm for dear life. Caleb notices the drow limps as he walks, uneven strides that stop at uneven intervals. There comes a point where Caleb stops in his tracks; Essek, mid step, nearly collapses into him.

“You don’t need to lie to me, Thelyss. Especially not about how busted up you are. Let’s head back.”

“N… no, Caleb.” Essek, using Caleb’s arm, draws himself back up again. “I’ve… always been like this.”

“What do you mean?

“There are many reasons why my brother is a guard in Bazzoxan, and I am a wizard. One reason is... have never been… the best walker.”

“...Why didn’t you tell me? I mean, you don’t have to, but… I don’t want you to hurt. You can still float, ja?”

Essek stumbles over his words, then stops. The distant look grows in his eyes again as he struggles to form a sentence. “I... I… I guess I… I don’t want to raise myself above you.”

Caleb is incredulous. “What?”

“When I use my magic… when I float at all times… it is to maintain expectation, to maintain the studious discipline of my status as a wizard. As a Shadowhand…” At this, Essek’s voice is scarcely a breath; he is Shadowhand no more. “I am… with equals now. I am with you. I should not, literally or figuratively, raise myself above you.”

“Essek…”

“Please. Do not be mad. I know it’s all just another lie.”

Caleb stares at Essek. He sees the blank eyes awash with grief and panic, ready to be hit like he was in the prisons. For a moment, he doesn’t know how to respond. It almost feels familiar.

“Essek, if you need to float to walk, then so be it. You are not judged here. I am not grading you on performance. Just… just be you.”

“...Who am I, Caleb?”

Caleb brings his other hand around, slowly, obviously, knowing Essek’s new response to a raised fist. He closes his fingers around Essek’s, both of them interlocked like a maze of limbs and appendages. He pulls Essek just a bit closer; the dark elf gasps, but quickly realizes there is nothing to defend against. Their breath is shared, as Caleb’s eyes truly lock with Essek’s for the first time tonight.

“You are Essek Thelyss. You are part of the Mighty Nein. And the rest… well, the rest is for you to decide. But you have something to start with, don’t you?”

“...I don’t think your friends would agree I’m part of your merry band-”

“Essek, we wouldn’t have dragged you this far on horseback across the plains, tending your wounds, if we did not consider you family.”

No sound escapes Essek’s lips, but he mouths family. Caleb releases his grip. As he does, Essek wobbles a bit, then… begins to lift off the ground, again. His cloak is lopsided; it does not hide one levitating foot. But he does not need to hide.

The two men look out in front of them; the stars are bright now, like the world in glitter, as Jester had once described it. Caleb cannot help but glance occasionally at the handsome man beside him, whose face, with its myriad of white freckles, seems to be kin with the universe itself. For just a moment, he looks like he did the first time they met.

“Essek of the Mighty Nein.

Huh.

I like that.”


End file.
